the fall of constantinople 1453 summary

Nevertheless, just as deeply entrenched was the understanding that Byzantine control of Constantinople was a necessary bastion against Muslim control of land and sea in the eastern Mediterranean. Please support Ancient History Encyclopedia Foundation. In the early hours of May 29, Ottoman labourers filled the moat surrounding the city. No significant help could be expected from the West where the Popes were already unimpressed with the Byzantine’s unwillingness to form a union of the Church and accept their supremacy. They largely refrained from slaughtering commoners and nobility, instead choosing to ransom them to their home states and primarily executing only those who fought after the surrender. The fall of Constantinople, which occurred on May 29,1453 was the final phase of the Byzantine-Ottoman Wars (1265-1453) and the darkest page in … It did, but The fall of the city removed what was once a powerful defense for Christian Europe against Muslim invasion, allowing for uninterrupted Ottoman expansion into eastern Europe. While it does cover that topic, it is about far more. 1453: The Fall of Constantinople. This classic account shows how the fall of Constantinople in May 1453, after a siege of several weeks, came as a bitter shock to Western Christendom. The resulting rubble piles actually absorbed the cannon shot better than fixed walls but, eventually, one of the infantry assaults would surely get through. The Ottomans then built a pontoon and fixed cannons to it so that they could now attack any part of the city from the sea side, not just the land. Constantinople was deeply weakened by 1453 and its eventual fall to the Ottoman Turks shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone. Crusader armies captured, looted, and destroyed parts of … Some Rights Reserved (2009-2021) under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license unless otherwise noted. The towers were so placed on the middle wall so as not to block the firing possibilities from the towers of the inner wall. This final defence was almost 5 metres thick, 12 metres high, and presented to the enemy 96 projecting towers. "1453: The Fall of Constantinople." For Christendom, Mehmed’s victory at Constantinople represented a serious shift in its dealings with the East. As a matter of fact, in the middle of May of 1453 the Venetian Senate was still deliberating about sending a fleet to Constantinople. Back in Asia Minor, Mehmed faced several revolts as his subjects became unruly while their Sultan and his army were abroad. Ancient History Encyclopedia. Mehmed II Conquers Constantinopleby Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant (Public Domain). In 1452 he reached peace treaties with Hungary and Venice. Already tested, it could fire a ball weighing 500 kilos over 1.5 km. Mehmed then tasked the Hungarian gunsmith Urban with both arming Rumelihisarı and building cannon powerful enough to bring down the walls of Constantinople. Greek Fireby Unknown Artist (Public Domain). The Fall of Constantinople (Greek: Ἅλωσις τῆς Κωνσταντινουπόλεως). For only $5 per month you can become a member and support our mission to engage people with cultural heritage and to improve history education worldwide. Some soldiers are pointing canons to the city and others are pulling boats He also began to view himself as Kayser-i Rûm (“Caesar of Rome”), the inheritor of the Roman Empire and all its historical lands. In short, Constantinople, with the greatest defences in the medieval world, was impregnable. The Fall of Constantinople occurred on May 29, 1453, after a siege which began on April 6. Numerous educational institutions recommend us, including Oxford University and Michigan State University and University of Missouri. The distance between the outer ditch and inner wall was 60 metres while the height difference was 30 metres. Byzantine relations with the rest of Europe had soured over the last several centuries as well: the Schism of 1054 and the 13th-century Latin occupation of Constantinople entrenched a mutual hatred between the Orthodox Byzantines and Roman Catholic Europe. Urban then peddled his expertise to the Sultan, and Mehmed showed more interest and offered him four times what he was asking. The attacking Ottoman army, which significantly outnumbered Constantinople's defenders, was commanded by the 21-year-old Sultan Mehmed II (later called "the Conqueror"), while the Byzantine army was led by Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos. Well, not quite. John Melville-Jones (New York, 1969). The commander in chief, Mehmed…. S. Runciman, The Fall of Constantinople 1453 (Cambridge, 1965).Back to (8) A. Pertusi, La Caduta di Costantinopoli (2 vols., Milan, 1976); A. Pertusi, Testi inediti e poco noti sulla Caduta di Costantinopoli (Bologna, 1983). The emperor could have fled the city days before but he chose to stay with his people, and a legend soon grew up that he had not died at all but, instead, he had been magically encased in marble and buried beneath the city which he would, one day, return to rule again. Uncountable art treasures were lost, books were burned, and anything with a Christian message was hacked to pieces, including frescoes and mosaics. Sultan Mehmed II transformed Hagia Sophia into an mosque, and the few partisans of the union fled to Italy.…, The fall of Constantinople in 1453 provided humanism with a major boost, for many eastern scholars fled to Italy, bringing with them important books and manuscripts and a tradition of Greek scholarship.…, …the enterprise and during the siege of Constantinople (April 6–May 29, 1453), the opposing views were voiced in two war councils convened at critical moments. Ancient History Encyclopedia, 23 Jan 2018. They climbed to the top of the wall and raised the Ottoman flag, then they worked their way around to the main gate and allowed their comrades to flood into the city. Submitted by Mark Cartwright, published on 23 January 2018 under the following license: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. Mehmed IIby Gentile Bellini (Public Domain). Cartwright, Mark. Jonathan Harris, The Siege and Fall of Constantinople in 1453: Historiography, Topography and Military Studies, by Marios Philippides and Walter K. Hanak, The English Historical Review, Volume 128, Issue 532, June 2013 We thank Professor Melville-Jones for his permission to republish this translation. Constantinople remained the most difficult military nut to crack in the world. Behind that was an outer wall which had a patrol track to oversee the moat. The Ottoman besiegers vastly outnumbered the Byzantines and their allies. In 1444 he lost an important battle to a Christian alliance in the Balkans and abdicated the throne to his son, Mehmed II. Many sought refuge in churches and barricaded themselves in, including inside the Hagia Sophia, but these were obvious targets for their treasures, and after they were looted for their gems and precious metals, the buildings and their priceless icons were smashed, the cowering captives butchered. The Roman / Byzantine Empire falls after the Ottoman Empire sieges Constantinople. The dwindling Byzantine Empire came to an end when the Ottomans breached Constantinople’s ancient land wall after besieging the city for 55 days. Now sultan for the second time, Mehmed II intended to complete his father’s mission and conquer Constantinople for the Ottomans. This piece, Lamentatio sanctae matris ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae (Lament of the Holy Mother, the Church of Constantinople) by the French composer Guillaume Dufay (1397-1474) depicts the Church of Constantinople lamenting before God's throne for the fall of the city. The Ottoman Empire had begun as a small Turkish emirate founded by Osman in Eskishehir (western Asia Minor) in the late 13th century CE, but by the early 14th century CE, it had already expanded into Thrace. The Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453 CE marked the final collapse of the Roman Empire. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Constantinople itself became an Ottoman vassal during this period. On 6 April the attack began. In 1396 CE, at Nikopolis on the Danube, an Ottoman army defeated a Crusader army. The battle was part of the Byzantine-Ottoman Wars (1265-1453). Despite a desperate last-ditch defense of the city by the massively outnumbered Christian forces (7,000 men, 2,000 of whom were sent by Rome), Constantinople finally fell to the Ottomans after a two-month … Some fool had left the small Kerkoporta gate in the Land Walls open and the Janissaries did not hesitate in using it. Having encircled Constantinople in full, Mehmed continued his artillery barrage of the land walls through May 29. Please select which sections you would like to print: Corrections? As the historian J. J. Norwich notes, That is why five and a half centuries later, throughout the Greek world, Tuesday is still believed to be the unluckiest day of the week; why the Turkish flag still depicts not a crescent but a waning moon, reminding us that the moon was in its last quarter when Constantinople finally fell. All of these attacks were unsuccessful thanks to the city’s location by the sea, its naval fleet, and the secret weapon of Greek Fire (a highly inflammable liquid), and, most importantly of all, the protection of the massive Theodosian Walls. Repaired and rebuilt by Michael VIII (r. 1261-1282 CE) in 1260 CE, the city remained the most difficult military nut to crack in the world, but this reputation did not in any way deter the ever-more ambitious Ottomans. Summary This major study is a comprehensive scholarly work on a key moment in the history of Europe, the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. Although the city suffered many attacks, prolonged sieges, internal rebellions, and even a period of occupation in the 13th century CE by the Fourth Crusaders, its legendary defences were the most formidable in both the ancient and medieval worlds. By March 1453 Urban’s cannon had been transported from the Ottoman capital of Edirne to the outskirts of Constantinople. The towers, either square or octagonal in form, could hold up to three artillery machines. Now devoid of both a long-standing buffer against the Ottomans and access to the Black Sea, Christian kingdoms relied on Hungary to halt any further westward expansion. Sack of Constantinople, (April 1204).The diversion of the Fourth Crusade from the Holy Land to attack, capture, and pillage the Byzantine city of Constantinople divided and dissipated the efforts of the Christians to maintain the war against the Muslims. Worse still, the once great Byzantine navy now consisted of a mere 26 ships, and most of those belonged to the Italian colonists of the city. Hungary refused to assist, and, instead of sending men, Pope Nicholas V saw the precarious situation as an opportunity to push for the reunification of the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, a priority of the papacy since 1054. Baltaoğlu Süleyman Bey commanded a fleet stationed at Diplokionion with an estimated 31 large and midsize warships alongside nearly 100 smaller boats and transports. It was a powerful statement that the city’s role as a bastion of Christianity for twelve centuries was now over. To the Turks, victory not only brought a new imperial capital, but guaranteed that their empire would last. These fearsome weapons were put to good use in November 1452 CE when a Venetian ship, disobeying a ban on traffic, was blown out of the water as it sailed down the Bosphorus. The result of years of research, it presents all available sources along with critical evaluations of these narratives. Its fall was inevitable, really only a question of time. The land walls spanned 4 miles (6.5 km) and consisted of a double line of ramparts with a moat on the outside; the higher of the two stood as high as 40 feet (12 metres) with a base as much as 16 feet (5 metres) thick. The Empire of Trebizond was an offshoot of the Byzantine Empire... Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire, The Siege and the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. Perhaps 4,000 were killed outright, and over 50,000 were shipped off as slaves. Fall of Constantinople, (May 29, 1453), conquest of Constantinople by Sultan Mehmed II of the Ottoman Empire. Even the Genoese colony of Pera, facing the capital, attempted to stay neutral. The Venetians did send a paltry two ships and 800 men in April 1453 CE, Genoa promised another ship, and even the Pope later promised five armed ships, but the Ottomans had by then already blockaded Constantinople. He stopped to pray and then demanded that all further looting cease immediately. Emperor Constantine XI is reported to have been killed while either fighting near the breach or fleeing to an escape boat. Then again, there were also ominous tales of impending doom: prophesies that proclaimed the fall of Constantinople when the emperor was called Constantine (a good number were, of course) and there was an eclipse of the moon - which there was in the days before the siege of 1453 CE. Between 60,000 and 80,000 soldiers fought on land, accompanied by 69 cannon. It was during this third wave that disaster struck the Byzantines who by now were forced to employ women and children to defend the walls. Cartwright, M. (2018, January 23). By this stage, Constantinople was underpopulated and dilapidated. The Sack of Constantinople occurred in April 1204 and marked the culmination of the Fourth Crusade. The fall of Constantinople in May 1453 was the end of an age for much of Europe and the Near East. Books Orthodox leaders voted in favour of union, but the people of Constantinople were adamantly against it and rioted in response. These walls had never been breached in the thousand years since their construction. Constantinople had withstood many sieges and attacks over the centuries, notably by the Arabs between 674 and 678 CE and again between 717 and 718 CE. By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. When most of Constantinople was secure, Mehmed himself rode through the streets of the city to the great cathedral of Hagia Sophia, the largest in all of Christendom, and converted it into the mosque Ayasofya. 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